Vettel breaks Red Bull win duck in Canada - Race Report

Vettel was leading with Hamilton 2nd, then Rosberg, Webber and Alonso battling for the 3rd position. Laps later, Webber was able to pass Rosberg and the Mercedes driver tried to close the door from Alonso, but couldn’t keep the Spaniard behind. Later on, Webber was going to lap Van Der Garde coming to the hairpin. Blue flags were waved and it seemed Van Der Garde made space for Webber, but in the end he didn’t and the two collided, making Webber damage his front wing and Van Der Garde to spin. The stewards soon gave Van Der Garde a 10 seconds stop-and-go penalty for ignoring blue flags and causing a collision. Thanks to the collision, Alonso was able to catch Webber and soon he got past and moved himself to the 3rd place. Ironically, the damaged front wing didn’t do much harm for Webber’s pace and his front wing wasn’t changed when he came for his second pit stop.

Soon Van Der Garde was in trouble again: his front wing was damaged and went under his car dangerously. The Caterham driver had to stop his car off the track. Replays showed how Nico Hülkenberg collided with Van Der Garde. The touch didn’t look too bad, but it was strong enough to break Hülkenberg’s suspension and he was out from the race. Meanwhile, on the lead, Vettel made a mistake on the first corner and went wide. Maybe he needed some action on the lead as he was cruising on the lead since the start. It didn’t cost much for the triple world champion as the gap behind was bigger than 15 seconds.

Force India’s Paul Di Resta had a surprisingly long run: he started with prime tyres and he continued with the same tyres until lap 57, when he finally came for his stop to take the option compound. The strategy worked surprisingly well.

Alonso started to haunt Hamilton’s second place and laps later, he was able to make the move after the start finish straight, seemingly with a small contact. But the Spaniard pulled away and Hamilton dropped to 3rd. Gutierrez, meanwhile, came to the pits for his last stop and soon after, the replays showed the Mexican off the track after the pit exit. There was never a replay shown about what really happened, but it seemed the Mexican made a mistake coming out from the pits.

Räikkönen was running in 8th place and was going to continue his long streak of point finishes, but he was under pressure from Felipe Massa, who was also having a good race with loads of battles after starting from the middle field, and he was hungry to get past his old team mate. Massa made the move just before the double went to the last lap, dropping the Lotus driver to 9th. The day wasn’t as expected for the Finn, as Lotus had expected even a podium place from him, even if the starting position wasn’t very good.

It was an easy race for Vettel, who took his first Canadian GP victory. Alonso was 2nd and Hamilton 3rd. Webber managed to keep 4th after all the strange action and Rosberg was 5th. Jean-Eric Vergne had a great race with his Toro Rosso and was 6th. Paul di Resta was 7th with his different strategy, Massa 8th, Räikkönen 9th and Sutil 10th on the last point finish. It was a disappointing race in the end for Valtteri Bottas as he was aiming to finish on points, but finished 14th after a great qualifying result.